Interview with Drew Pendergrass (2023)

From the July 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Drew Pendergrass, the co-author, with Troy Vettese, of a striking new book entitled Half-Earth Socialism: a Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics (reviewed in the March 2023 edition of this journal) talks to the Socialist Standard to discuss why he thinks both human society and the natural environment can only survive through a new model of social and economic organisation, a moneyless, wageless one of democratic planning, voluntary cooperation and free access to all goods and services.

In the book you co-wrote with Troy Vettese, you put forward the idea of a world non-market society and outline how you see it as operating in practical terms. What brought you to this idea in the first place?

By day, I am a climate scientist — in my work, I see how incompatible our current economic order is with an ecologically and climatologically stable planet. Even more radicalizing than this, I am a scientist at Harvard University, a place unafraid to take the status quo to its logical conclusion. People at Harvard don’t believe in the possibility of social change, at least not beyond marginal adjustments. However, the scientists there are just as aware as I am about the incompatibility of capitalism and the climate, though they would not use those terms. This is why solar geoengineering, the idea that we could spray particles into the stratosphere to dim the sun and cool the planet, has become a central part of the environmental research and curriculum at this university. Rather than change our society to meet the demands of our planet, it is more realistic to them to change the planet to meet the demands of capitalism. And I think they are right — to keep the status quo, you need geoengineering, even though the risks are profound. I have been a socialist since I was in high school and have no interest in preserving capitalism, so Troy and I wanted to offer an alternative.

There are others who advocate the kind of society you do, but, following Marx, they usually say that you can’t write ‘recipes for the cookshops of the future’. Why do think it’s feasible and useful to try to do this?

During and immediately after Marx and Engels were writing, utopia was in the air. Utopian fiction peaked in the 1880s and 90s with books like Bellamy’s Looking Backward and Morris’s News from Nowhere. At that time, even the mainstream thought capitalism really could be supplanted by something new. Although Marx himself does not lay out in one place his vision of a socialist or communist society, this does not mean he didn’t have ideas about what that society would entail: scholars like Bertell Ollman have reconstructed in some detail the outlines of Marx’s utopia. More importantly, workers had clear ideas about what alternatives to capitalism might entail — many had memories of non-capitalist lifeways to draw on, such as the peasantry, and a wide-open sense of possibility catalysed by revolutionary moments like 1848 or the Paris Commune.

Now, alternatives are not self-evident. With the failed utopias in the twentieth century and the rise of the world market in the twenty-first, there is not a sense that an alternative to capitalism lies in wait — many doubt that an alternative exists at all. With this recent history, the nineteenth century advice to avoid ‘recipes for the cookshops of the future’ seems outdated. Certainly, when coming up with proposals for how a socialist society might work, one must remain humble. But the concreteness of this exercise is a necessary corrective to a world that has lost its utopian spark. As Robin D. G. Kelley reminds us, no social movement exists without a concrete vision for a better future as its north star.

You describe the common idea that the earth is over-populated as ‘dangerously exaggerated’. But wouldn’t some say that there too many people for the resources that the Earth, even in a non-market society, could make available to give everyone a decent, comfortable life? Wouldn’t some also say that this is especially the case for the system that you advocate, one that would see half the Earth (‘Half-Earth Socialism’) being occupied by rewilded ecosystems in order for it to recover and prosper?

One of the exercises we follow in the book is to imagine what it would take to provide the material basis for human flourishing to ten billion people, a fair bit more than live today, while staying within planetary boundaries. We make the point that both sides of this equation — what a ‘comfortable’ life means, and where exactly planetary boundaries lie — are political questions that can only be answered by reference to values. Science cannot tell us what we should or should not do; it can merely advise on the consequences of certain material pressures on the Earth system.

We argue in the book that it is certainly possible with present technology to provide a comfortable life for ten billion people, rewild much of the biosphere, decarbonize the economy, and begin to repair the damage of centuries of capitalism. The trick is what you mean by the ‘comfortable’. If you mean US levels of energy and material use, then you will be dissatisfied by our proposal. Instead, we propose energy quotas and a change in diet towards veganism for most people.

Deep decarbonization is very hard. Fossil fuels are energy dense (lots of energy per unit mass) and can be burned anytime, day or night. Decarbonizing electricity is the easy part, though load management with intermittent renewable sources presents an engineering challenge. Replacing fuels in industrial and transport processes is much harder. Planes, for example, need energy-dense power sources like kerosene so they are light enough to fly. However, replacing fossil fuels with renewable fuels require vast amounts of electricity to transform carbon from the atmosphere into fuels for planes. For example, decarbonizing flights in the UK alone would require more electricity than the entire country generates today. The other option would be biofuels, but these require vast swaths of land to grow; in the UK, for flights alone, this would be two thirds of its croplands. Quotas are the only way to make a world without fossil fuels work for everyone.

Similarly, animal husbandry eats up 77 percent of agricultural land while providing only a fraction of the nutrients people need. The industry emits gobs of greenhouse gases, including vast amounts of the potent short-lived methane; cutting methane rapidly is a useful way to ‘bend the curve’ on climate change, limiting near-term warming as we build up our capacity to replace carbon dioxide emitting infrastructure. Abolishing the meat industry and eating mainly plants instead would clean up the atmosphere and free up lots of land for rewilding. Remember that habitat loss is one of the main drivers of mass extinction, and one of the main drivers of habitat loss is animal agriculture — both fodder (soy and corn) and grazing land.

A life with no meat, fewer flights, smaller homes, limited cars, and reduced consumption may seem intolerable for some. But that does not mean such a life isn’t comfortable. Guaranteed housing, health care, and education in a built environment that prioritizes sharing and community sounds luxurious to me.

You seem very lukewarm about ‘green’ solutions to the environmental crisis. But wouldn’t some people argue that the policies proposed by mainstream advocates of environmentalism at least contribute to offering some partial remedy to the degradation and despoliation of the Earth that you describe in your book?

Certainly we encourage the development of policies and technologies that can repair the damage to the Earth system. For example, in the book we are bullish on hydrogen for electrifying the industrial sector and management in grid load; lots of capitalists like this investment too. I spend much of my day as an environmental activist in Boston, pushing for reforms like strict building energy use codes and decarbonizing municipal buildings. None of these reforms are incompatible with capitalism, although we hope that our movement will grow in strength and demand more. The argument we make in the book is that the unconscious force of capital will always be dominant in a capitalist society, and that this force is incompatible with the flourishing of the biosphere because of its metabolic need to ingest ever-increasing swaths of nature. Reforms and technologies that limit the damage are welcome, but we need to do all we can to align these forces towards a larger social transformation.

How close do you think the biosphere is to the ‘extinction’ you refer to in the title of your book?

Human beings and the biosphere are not in danger of extinction. The extinction in the title of the book refers to the ongoing Sixth Mass Extinction event in the nearly four-billion-year history of life on this planet. Life is robust; it will continue, however damaged. Still, we have a responsibility to maintain biodiversity both as an end-in-itself, but also out of self-interest. Healthy ecosystems are robust to disease, maintain productive agriculture, and sequester carbon.

You talk about how we can run things rationally and sustainably without money and the market and instead by democratic planning ‘in kind’. But how do you see this planning taking place? How would you argue against those who might say that a society without monetary accounting would quickly degenerate into shortage and social chaos?

This is a hard question, and certainly I will not be able to answer it to your readers’ satisfaction here. I’ll also note that Troy and I are continuing to think about moneyless planning and are planning a follow-up book on the topic.

In the book, we present a thought experiment about how moneyless planning in a world socialist society might work. A global parliament would create a few coarsely-resolved global plans, reflecting different coalitions in power; these plans might offer proposals about energy quotas, the energy generation system, food production, and material throughput needs. After debate, a plan would be adopted for a period, subject to constant revisions. The implementation of these economic plans would take place at more local levels of government, which would have wide leeway to decide how to govern themselves so long as they fit within the parameters of the global plan. Although there should be considerable flexibility, we think that a global plan is necessary. Because humanity has become a planetary species, able to unintentionally alter the climate and biosphere, we argue that we need a form of government that is commensurate with the scale of our power. We want to consciously debate and control our society, rather than let capital blindly trash the biosphere.

We argue that the algorithms and technologies necessary to plan on this scale already exist; in the book we outline the history of linear programming and other algorithms in the fields of optimization and control theory. The challenge is (1) gathering the necessary information to plan effectively, (2) foregrounding democracy, and (3) ensuring that plans are actually implemented. There were experiments in the Eastern Bloc with algorithmic planning as a reform measure, but they failed in these three challenges. Our argument is that these challenges are intertwined and fundamentally emerge from the need for democracy. If planning is carried out by a richly democratic society, with participatory institutions at every level from the workplace to national and global parliaments, then planning will have a legitimacy that technocracy could never hope to achieve. That legitimacy helps with information gathering, at least with enough quality to create passable plans, and with successful plan implementation. No one will work for a socialism they don’t believe in.

Although there is a lot to say about this topic, I think that there is no reason to believe well-formed institutions cannot operate a complex society without the mediating power of money. However, more utopias and thought experiments would be useful in working out some first principles in designing such a society. Here, again, there is a need for more ‘recipes for the cookshops of the future!’

How would you respond to the argument put forward by some that a society based on voluntary work and cooperation to produce everything humanity needs could not work owing to the frailties of ‘human nature’?

I don’t believe in human nature as some timeless, unchanging category. One of the useful lessons of history is that people in the past are wildly different from people today. Even the Ancient Greeks, who we in the West see as our ancestors, lived by practices and beliefs and motivations that are incomprehensible to us today. However, I do take your point that human nature as it exists today has been imprinted with capitalism. While Margaret Thatcher’s line that “there is no such thing as society” is obviously ridiculous, capitalist social relations make it more and more true each day. Hostility towards strangers, paranoia, and loneliness all are outcomes of capitalism that, while not part of human nature, nevertheless make building solidarity hard. That said, I’ve seen people transform when they are brought into genuinely solidaristic institutions like trade unions or activist groups. Being part of a union myself will always make me hopeful about the possibility of socialism.

For socialism to work, you don’t need to believe human beings are angels. Instead, you need to believe that people are shaped by the institutions and social situation around them, and that those infrastructures can be changed by humans because they were constructed by humans.

As an additional note, socialism need not be entirely voluntary. Abolishing alienation in labor and establishing social control of the economy will both involve vast new democratic institutions, but vaccine mandates, for example, will remain necessary to protect public health. Coercive measures like these are obviously a risk for any society, but I am confident that robust participatory institutions can prevent necessary coercion from expanding beyond its remit into tyranny.

How do you think it’s possible to convince enough people that a world socialist society is possible and feasible? And if that does happen, what practical steps do you think will be necessary to bring that society into being?

I think a great way to convince people that alternatives are possible is to use utopias as a method. Real utopias, in the form of democratic rank-and-file trade unions, show people that participatory democracy can transform lives. Fictional utopias and thought experiments like ours demonstrate that even knotty crises like environmental collapse can be remedied. We even made a video game, available at play.half.earth, that allows people to experience what planning a world economy might feel like. All these things together might convince enough people to form the seeds of a movement, which could grow into a revolutionary moment. Our chances are better if we can unite different splinters on the left into a fighting movement. Of course, the odds are against us, but I think that if we can assemble a large base with a radical imagination, design institutions that prefigure the world we want, and build enough power to achieve real intermediate victories, we will be on our way towards a winning socialist movement.

You seem to see some regimes within capitalism (e.g. Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba, Allende’s Chile) as genuine but failed attempts to establish socialism. But do these regimes really have any relationship with the socialism that you describe and advocate in your book?

You are absolutely right that these regimes are not socialist. I am sympathetic to interpretations of the USSR and other similar regimes as ‘state capitalist.’ In particular, I like Moishe Postone’s argument that because these societies are still governed by the law of value they have not overcome capitalism, no matter what the party claimed. However, I think it is also important to remember that the people who built these regimes (here I’m thinking primarily of China and the USSR) really were socialists and really did want to build an alternative to capitalism. It is on us to learn from their failures. We may not have the same youthful optimism as socialists from a century ago, but we do have many examples of how not to do socialism — that’s useful data as we shape our demands and imagined alternatives today. This is why in the book we engage deeply with attempts to reform the Soviet economy, even as we are strongly critical of the USSR.

You favour veganism as a way of feeding everyone while having the smallest environmental impact. But do you think that humanity as a whole, having been omnivorous throughout their existence, will ever accept the total exclusion of animal foodstuffs from their diet? And, more generally, isn’t it hard enough to persuade people to work for socialism without also telling them they may have to give up things they like?

I already detailed why veganism makes sense as an environmental policy, so here I’ll focus on the critiques. First, the amount of meat we in the Global North eat today is historically unprecedented. Our ancestors did eat meat, but only a small fraction of what we do today. As a result, there are cultural resources to draw on in most areas to create meatless dishes. For example, I’m from the South in the US, home of barbeque and fried chicken. But my hometown also hosts a large Seventh Day Adventist community, who do not eat meat for religious reasons; my great-grandfather, who was a farmer, lived basically as a vegetarian because he didn’t like to kill animals. As a vegan myself, my main practice is to show people that meatless food can be delicious and joyful. In Spain of all places, the minister for consumer affairs Alberto Garzon is working to reduce meat consumption with some success. There are ways to build campaigns around this issue, even though I agree it is a hard sell.

If I may, I’d like to expand your question further. Even if your readers disagree with me on the animal question, there are other aspects of socialism which are unpopular on their face. For example, fighting neo-colonial exploitation may not poll well in places like the UK. I like this quote from the first pages of the feminist writer Sophie Lewis’s Abolish the Family: ‘All of us—even those of us who own no property, who receive no guaranteed care, and who subsist at the blunt end of empire, whiteness, cis-hetero-patriarchy, and class— will have to let go of something as the process of our collective liberation unfolds. If the world is to be remade utterly, then a person must be willing to be remade also.’ One need not agree with Lewis’s position on family abolition to recognize the truth of her argument. Even if the world we will build is far better than the one that exists, things will be lost in the process. All socialists will need to confront this challenge, even if self-consciously they only demand what is ‘popular.’

Our afterword

Readers will appreciate that many of the ideas expressed in the interview are very much in line with the views the Socialist Party has long been spreading. We would give as examples the fallacy of ‘human nature’, the myth of over-population, and in particular the need for a global, ‘richly democrat’, wageless, moneyless, non-market society using advanced technologies already available. We must, however, also say that we do not see entirely eye to eye with Drew Pendergrass on certain elements of the analysis he puts forwards. In this regard we would highlight in particular: his vision of a future global socialist society as one still to be run by governments, if globally as well as nationally; his view that the Russian and Chinese revolutions of the 20th century constituted, at least in their early stages, an attempt to establish socialism in our terms; and his insistence that, from the point of view of practical resource usage, we can only have socialism if everyone is vegan.

In our view socialism can only be a society without leaders and led and without national boundaries. It follows from this that it must also be free of governments, whether national or global. Its watchword must be administration of things rather than government over people. Of course we accept that the interviewee may be using the word ‘government’ in a wider sense than normal and ‘national’ more in the sense of ‘regional’. If so, then his view may equate closely to ours.

Our less than positive view of his seeing the Russian and Chinese revolutions as attempts at socialism arises from the fact that neither country was anywhere close to the advanced form of capitalism needed for socialism to emerge from them. Lenin famously said that, if the Bolsheviks had to wait for the masses to understand socialism, it would take 500 years (meaning never), while China under Mao was little more than the personal possession of a tyrannical ruler who was prepared to unleash and oversee the most profound atrocities to affirm and consolidate his power.

Pendergrass is open about the need he sees to propose a highly detailed picture of a future non-market society, which he conceives as arising gradually and imperfectly from tendencies within capitalism and being ‘ironed out’ into complete ‘socialism’ with time. We, on the other hand, insist on the need for a majority of workers to first win control of political power, probably via the ballot box, at which point detailed plans for running the new society will have already been made and the passage to it can be relatively seamless. As it will be up to those around when socialism starts to be seriously on the agenda to decide on specific details, we see it as arguably undemocratic and even maybe dogmatic to start proposing detailed plans now (speculative ideas perhaps, but not detailed plans), since we do not know at what point society will then be, in particular technologically.

Blogger's Note:

There is another expanded review of 'Half-Earth Socialism', which goes to into greater detail, at the following link: A plan to save the future (2023).

"Old Nick" goes strictly legit

A Short Story from the April 1984 issue of the World Socialist

Nicolo Mephistophelio senior ("Old Nick") nervously fingered his neatly trimmed, gray, Beelzebub-type chin whiskers as he dropped into his luxurious easy chair at the head of the mahogany conference table. It was just 9 a.m. but he had been up some four hours already in order that he might tend to his religious duties, a daily practice with Nicolo from as far back as he could remember—from his childhood in Sicily, a long time ago since he was now in his 70s. He had breakfasted on his way home from mass and was free to relax for a brief spell before plunging into his busy, secular routine.

He was alone, for the moment, in this front room of his mansion atop the hill just inside the southern limits of the City in a swank neighborhood populated mainly by Yankee tycoons from the world of high finance. Nicolo relished the knowledge, gained from his bookish son Nicolo jr., a Senior at Harvard Business School, that these aristocratic neighbors—like himself—were descended from a line of highly questionable characters—in their cases slave traders. It made him, a Mafia Godfather, feel comfortable to be living—as he would jokingly put it to his close business associates—among his professional colleagues.

The spacious front room in which he sat, ostentatiously furnished and decorated with a mixture of modern American business slogans: GO GETTEM!, DO IT NOW!, etc., and pictures of American and Sicilian scenes and dignitaries, served as the head office of the Mephistophelio Family operations—an extensive network of legal, borderline, and strictly illegal businesses running from the processing and purveying of olive oil to the production and distribution of drugs-licit and illicit. His staff was by now in place in the various offices that were scattered throughout the mansion but no meetings were scheduled that morning in the conference room—none but the private session he awaited with his son, "Young Nick". Nicolo jr. was so-dubbed by those who knew him well because of his being thought of as a carbon copy of his father in the fiendishness of his business acumen. The strategy involved in the selection of Harvard Business School for this scion of the Mephistophelio Family was a polishing job that would add a distinguishable and brand new touch of suavity and respectability to this ancient Sicilian clan.

But "Old Nick", usually outwardly calm and collected, seemed greatly upset on this particular morning. He had been alternating his gaze between the pictures, charts, and business-oriented slogans on the walls and the breathtaking sweep of woodland park surrounding his mansion, a park that afforded him temporary escape from his business cares, astride his Arabian horse or putting golf balls on his private links. Finally, he might be seen—had anyone suddenly entered the room—arms on table cradling his head, in an attitude of fatigue—or dejection.

Whatever it was that bothered Nicolo's thoughts on this morning would not seem to have been related to his health. He appeared, for a man of his years, to be in fine shape. His rugged, five foot eleven inch frame and clear eyes almost suggested a much younger man—a man of this late 20th century, sophisticated, variety. Considering the dangers involved in the life of a Mafia Godfather—the threats against life and limb—"Old Nick" might well have been forgiven had he begun to reflect that the life of a Mafioso capitalist was no bed of roses, that it was time he retired to some Mediterranean island or other. But the racketeering way of life was bred in his bones and now he had a terrible worry eating at his vitals— the worry about his son's future, for he had begun to suspect, strongly, that something was going wrong with the Harvard strategy. Was his son who had been destined to take over control of the Mephistophelio empire planning on abandoning the ship—going legit?

Yes! It was ironical, he thought. He, the father, had been so proud that his son had been accepted into Harvard Business School and was on the verge of graduating. He had been trained by the cream of the legit economist crop and "Old Nick" had firmly believed that this fact would be of invaluable importance to the fortunes of the Mephistophelio operations. But now, as "Old Nick" awaited this meeting with his son, he just knew in his heart that he would get the message—and that it would be bad news for him. "Young Nick", influenced by his professors and by his society buddies at Harvard, would announce his official rejection of the Mafioso way of doing business. He would have been sold that bill of goods—that the Harvard way is the pinnacle of proper enterprise while the rackets were nothing but bad business. The liberal fraternity of Harvard must have gotten to him, perverted his way of thinking!

He heard his son's entrance and cheery "hello" and he snapped into alertness. The moment had arrived. "Old Nick" straightened his shoulders, resolved to summon every argument he could remember in defense of his heritage. He would concede nothing other than that aura of sophisticated respectability attached to Harvard; something he had already conceded when he had encouraged his son to enrol there. He was ready.

"Young Nick" was an athletically-built, dark featured, handsome enough fellow attired now in riding breeches, spurs, red blazer, cocked and plumed hat, and carrying a whip. He sat in a chair facing his father. "Yes, Papa," he spoke in a tone suggesting reverence, although not necessarily deference. "Young Nick" had arrived at an age at which he was certain that he knew much more than did his father about how society and the world were put together. And he was about to demonstrate to his own satisfaction, at least, that he certainly did. "Sorry about my delay" he said apologetically. "I was dressing for a chukker of polo—I've just been admitted to the Society at School. But I had something else on my mind so it took me a bit longer than I'd figured."

Ah yes! Something else on his mind, thought "Old Nick", but he managed a smile: "That's OK, Nicolo." He looked his son over approvingly. Although there was that fearsome worry attached, he felt a vicarious thrill at the acceptance of his son by High Society—and how much higher could one get in Society than Harvard Business School? His son was truly, now, in the same league as his aristocratic Yankee neighbours. True, some of the professors—he had been warned by Father Bulloni over at the Cathedral—were liberal do-gooders, even Communists or Communist dupes—to use an expression of his late hero, Senator Joseph McCarthy. There was that fellow Galbraith, for example: an advocate of socialism, Bolloni maintained and he, "Old Nick", had in fact listened to some of those TV and radio debates between Galbraith and Bill Buckley, the beloved defender of the Faith and of the American Way—which was not necessarily "Old Nick'"s way but which was certainly better than "Galbraith's socialism". But "Old Nick" had not imagined that his son would waste his time listening to the arguments of offbeat political reformers: not until recently had he suspected this. And the old man was now even beginning to fear that a type of mental illness that had afflicted his late wife some years back was beginning to disturb her son. He had even been compelled to have her incarcerated, for a time, where she had undergone electric shock treatment. He shot an anxious glance at "Young Nick"'s eyes as the memory gripped him momentarily. He recalled that it had not been easy to distinguish many of the inmates—when on visits to his wife—from mentally sound visitors.

He snapped out of his momentary reverie and reached for a parodi, an action that caused "Young Nick" to brace himself. The aroma from a previous, partially smoked stogie hung in the air and the son, knowing his father's infrequent smoking habit, sensed the old man's inward agitation. He had a strongly educated guess as to why this sudden session had been called; he knew that the time had come for a showdown, and he wasted no time in collecting his thoughts in order to be able to present his case as forcefully—yet with gentleness—as possible.

"Old Nick" lit up, blew a smoke ring or two, then looked his son squarely in the eye. "Yes, Nicolo, he said. "Polo is wonderful and there is no reason why you should not indulge in it although you should also spend time at the boccie games among our countrymen in the North End. We must not divorce ourselves altogether from our Old Culture in our social life. But now I want to talk to you about something much more important. You must realize, of course, that I want you to become the Numero Uno of all of my enterprises and you can take over immediately after your graduation—that will be your graduation present. Of course it will take some time before you really catch on to how everything should be done but I will still be around to help you and to give you good advice. I'll be in the backghround, like those old retired professors at your college—those emeritus people, you call them don't you? And everybody will know and will give you the respect and the honor that they should give you. With your college background and your financial power you can even make it big in politics some day!"

The die was finally cast! The old man had gotten it out and now he sat silently, puffing on his parodi, awaiting his son's response with ill-concealed tenseness.

"Young Nick" was silent for a moment, mentally polishing his approach. Finally, "Papa," he said respectfully, speaking slowly and with just a trace of nervousness showing, "I, too, have wanted to discuss my future with you for some time now. I've been putting it off but now it is time to tell you about my plans. I'm going to establish my own business and it is going to be a strictly legit operation. I'm going into food processing—from antipastos to spumoni with every known variety of pasta and sauce—maybe even some that are not known, entirely new ones. I'm going to make the Mephistophelio name famous instead of infamous. I'm going to be regarded as a public benefactor because I'm going to provide plenty of jobs at wages—I'll be thought of as a pillar of society and of the Church . . ."

It had come; his fears were well taken; the respectable do-gooders had gotten to his son. "Old Nick" was out of his chair in a flash, one hand raised with index finger wagging. "Look here, my boy, I too am a pillar of society and of the Church and a public benefactor. I provide plenty of jobs at wages, I make generous donations to the Church and to all sorts of Charities ..." He was flushed and "Young Nick" became nervous.

"Papa, your blood pressure. Remember your doctor warned you to keep away from tense situations. Relax, please, and let me explain why I think the rackets make no sense." The old man sat down and tried to calm down, resolving to hear his son out but with a mixture of puzzlement and worry in his expression. "Go ahead, Nicolo, explain to me why the empire that I and my father and grandfather built makes no sense, why all of this" he waved his hand to indicate the mansion and the estate, in general, "why all of this makes no sense."

"Young Nick" was by now forced into making a fast mental decision. His father's few words spoken thus far underlined the importance to the economy of Organized Crime and even the wide social acceptance, by respectable elements, of prominent and powerful crime figures such as his father. How could he forget the extravagant parties that his father had sponsored, on occasion, at which many of the most prominent and influential representatives from the world of politics, entertainment and Society were honoured to attend? He must scrap that part of his argument and get down to the meat—the substance.

"Papa," he said, "the fact is that the rackets make no sense because legit operation gives you everything you can make actually gratis—at least in the long run. And the most beautiful part of it all is that the very people who are producing all of this legit wealth for you and making you a present of it—these same employees regard you as a public benefactor because you are giving them the chance to do this for you. All they ask is that you pay them enough to make a living. . ."

"Old Nick" was really visibly shaken by now. He noted the crafty glint in his son's eye but mistook it for incipient insanity. "Nicolo," he said soothingly, "you've been studying too hard lately—hitting the books, like you call it. I know that too much of that college stuff, crammed into your head, can be bad for you mentally." In fact, "Old Nick" had even heard of cases of college students committing suicide because of pressure of their studies and he became genuinely worried. "Nicolo," he urged, pleadingly, "you'd better take a few days off before those final exams—forget the books, relax completely. Why don't you take some of those society sweethearts of yours up to the mountains?"

"Young Nick" smiled broadly. "Papa, I know that I must sound to you like I'm losing my marbles. But please hear me out. You know as much about legit enterprise as the average business man—after all, you do run all sorts of respectable businesses along with the racketeering. But like just about all businessmen you think that your profits come from your ability to take advantage of your competitors and the people you buy your merchandise from and those you sell it to. That helps, of course, but it really doesn't explain anything because those people, those other business people you deal with are taking it away from you as fast as you take it from them—or, if not from you, then from others. All that is happening is a continual redistribution of all of that wealth that is out there. . ."

"Old Nick" shrugged his shoulders, leaned back in his chair and watched his son with narrowing eyes. He would hear him out before coming to any decision on what to try to do with him. He could not restrain himself, however, from blurting out one question that was now eating at his vitals: "Do you mean to tell me that they are teaching you that kind of Communist garbage at Harvard Business School? Am I giving them my good dough to fill your head with that nonsense?"

"Young Nick" laughed. "Of course not, Papa. You can't run businesses on that brand of economics. They don't even make too much out of it in the Communist countries although it doesn't seem to hurt any that some of the top executives may very well understand the process. No. I didn't get my understanding from Harvard. I got it on my own by studying the kind of texts my professors either put down or mention only in passing." He paused for a moment to make certain that the old man was reasonably calm—in a mood to pay attention to what he was about to say. "Old Nick" was not smiling but he did wave his son on.

"Go ahead, Nicolo," he said, "explain how the legit operators get everything gratis; how their raw materials, plant space, machinery, taxes, insurances, cost them zilch. And the wages we pay out. How can you say that is not a cost to us?"

"Look, Papa," "Young Nick" spoke slowly, stressing his words, "of course you have to lay out dough for wages. But that money comes from a fund provided by the sale of what your workers have already produced. It's a continuous process once the operation has been founded and the workers are actually producing the money that you use to pay them the wages that you pay them.They've got to or you wouldn't keep them long, would you?" He looked sharply at his father's expression and he seemed to detect an alteration in it—a glimmer of understanding, he hoped.

"And not only that, Papa," "Young Nick" went on, "neither you nor any other business man is in business simply because most people must have jobs at wages in order to live. Of course if it wasn't for that fact you couldn't be in business, to begin with but your object can't be simply to provide jobs for working people. You have to pay all of your expenses of operation and you have go have a good margin left over to enjoy life, too. So those workers of yours have to produce a value far greater than what they get from their wages. . ."

The old man shifted uneasily in his chair. "And you mean to tell me, Nicolo, that my brains and abilities have nothing to do with it? That all those long hours that I put in are of no importance?"

"Of course what you do is important," "Young Nick" assured him. "But what you do has to do with protecting your interests, not in creating your wealth. And anyway, you're big enough now to be able to hire the best brains that Harvard turns out to look after your interests. The point that I'm trying to make though, is that the rackets make no sense because all those people out there who work jobs at wages in order to live and raise their families are making you an offer that you just can't sensibly refuse."

The old man sat silent, obviously mulling it all over. "Young Nick" then administered his coup de grace: "Look, Papa," he said, "let me give you an analogy. Supposing we were to make an offer like this to any of those workers nervousness you or who will work for me. Let's say that we offer to take his shiny, new car  to use in our business. We use it for eight hours each working day, we provide the gas, oil, and maintenance to keep it operating efficiently for us; letting its owner have it after working hours, even giving him enough to run it during his leisure hours. You know that he wouldn't go for a deal like that. Not with his car you can be sure. But he does it with himself and he's convinced that there's nothing else he could do and that this is how it's supposed to be. . . With all of the talk about socialism and communism in more than half of the world that's the way things operate in those countries, too. The goverments might be the legal owners but the basics are the same the world over. The legit operators—private like here or bureaucratic wheeler-dealers like in the Communiutst countries—have it made. It just doesn't make sense to get involved with the rackets when you've got a deal like that. It's an offer I can't refuse."

He had been watching his old man's face carefully while he was making his pitch. He could see the conflicting emotions as "Old Nick" seemed to be assimilating the message; he could almost see the wheels in his father's head turning. "Young Nick" sensed that he had made a sale. "Old Nick" smiled his most devilish smile. He stood up and seized his son's hand. "Nicolo," he boomed: "You're on! I'm going to go all-out legit. You want a partner in your Mephistophelio Pasta Company?"

Harry Morrison (USA.)

Tiny Tips (2011)

The Tiny Tips column from the December 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Indian government has announced a drop in the number of poor people in the country by massaging the criteria used to measure poverty. By its reckoning, less than a dollar a day is enough to get by:

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China has accused European workers of being ‘slothful’ and ‘indolent’ after refusing to put any of its vast resources into rescuing the euro. The head of the Chinese state’s overseas investment arm said he would only help Europe if it reformed its ‘outdated’ labour laws and welfare systems. Jin Liqun, chairman of the board of supervisors of China Investment Corporation, said Europeans should stop ‘languishing on the beach’ and work harder it they want to drag the eurozone out of its downward spiral. And he said Europeans have become too reliant on state handouts and should stop looking to outside sources to tackle the debt crisis threatening the euro:

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In recent weeks, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has received a spate of applications from enterprising merchandisers, lawyers and others seeking to win exclusive commercial rights to such phrases as “We are the 99 percent,” ‘’Occupy” and “Occupy DC 2012.” Organizers of the protest centered in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park went so far as to file for a trademark of “Occupy Wall Street” after several other applications connected to the demonstrations were fi led with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Wylie Stecklow, a lawyer representing the protesters, said the Oct. 24 filing was done to prevent profiteering from a movement that many say is a protest of corporate greed:

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Since the abolition of serfdom and human trafficking more than 150 years ago, slavery is against the law in all countries on earth. And yet, according to the UK’s Anti Slavery International (ASI) there are still some 27 million people living in slavery, living at the mercy of landowners, earning virtually nothing:

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“In 1917, average income — including capital gains — among the top 0.1 percent was 127 times the average income of the bottom 90 percent,” Professor Hacker said. “Average income among the top 0.01 percent was 509 times as great. In 2007, average income among the top 0.1 percent was 220 times average income among the bottom 90 percent. Average income among the top 0.01 percent was 1,080 times as great.”

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The Occupy Wall Street movement has landed at Harvard University, where some 70 students walked out of an introductory economics class last week to protest what they saw as biased teachings. The students explained their walkout in an open letter to professor Greg Mankiw posted on the website of the Harvard Political Review. “Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 101, in order to  express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course,” they wrote. “We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater  society.”

[Dead Link]

Our Companion Parties in the Western Hemisphere (1942)

From the February 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent letters from the Workers' Socialist Party of the U.S.A. give some interesting details of their activities and progress during the past few months.

Slowly bit surely their journal, the Western Socialist, is reaching an ever widening circle of readers. New contacts have been made in Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee, etc., and their journal is finding its way even to such remote places as Dutch Harbour in the Aleutian Islands

Debates and Meetings

The Catholic Worker sent their co-founder, Peter Maurin, from New York City to Boston on November 14th, 1941, to debate with the W.S.P. on "Catholic Communism versus Socialism." The W.S.P., commenting on the debate, state: "We analysed the Labour Encyclicals of the Pope in which the Catholic Worker claims to base its action. The general idea behind this organisation is to foster co-operative farms, soup kitchens, Catholic trade unions, and plenty of prayer. It is meant to attract the awakening Catholic workers and to emasculate their efforts for social emancipation." The attendance, and the resulting sales of literature were fair.

On November 23rd they debated successfully with the "Socialist Party of America," whose representative declared: "There are going to be wages paid in the Socialism I want" . . . "Investment banking and money will be absolutely necessary." The W.S.P. had no difficulty in dealing effectively with such nostrums. The Boston local, under whose auspices the debate was held, report that literature sales and the collection were excellent.

Harvard University sent three speakers in December 14th to debate with the W.S.P. on "Only Socialism can abolish war." The U.S.A. had already been a war a week, and despite the general excitement which prevailed, the attendance was satisfactory, and the literature sales were good.

Their outdoor propaganda season was the best record. It was brought to a close of November 9th with an informal debate with the American Action Associates (a Catholic Action—isolationist group). This took place on Boston Common, and although the day was cold and drizzly, our comrades state: "We held an enthusiastic crowd of three hundred for almost three hours."

The Western Socialist

The latest issue of the Western Socialist has reached us, and although it was published before the American-Japanese clash, it contains a revealing article on the reasons why the clash of these two rival powers was inevitable.

Exceptionally good articles dealing with the status of the negro population of the U.S.A., and the position of the Jews in Capitalist society, are an attractive feature.

There is an outstanding article entitled: "We who are about to Live." It epitomises the attitude of that section of international youth which is becoming aware that only Socialism can remove the causes of the poverty, wars, and frustration, from which they suffer.

Free Offer

W.S.P. offer a free specimen copy of the Western Socialist. We urge our American readers in particular to take advantage of it, and for their convenience we set out below the address to which to send requests. For the benefit of our readers who are disposed to become subscribers at once, we also set out particulars of subscription rates.

News from Canada

Since the war started, our companion Party, the Socialist Party of Canada, has undergone many vicissitudes. Activities in most of their locals have been curtailed very severely, but contact is maintained with the headquarters in Winnipeg, and the locals undertake the distribution of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD in their respective territories.

Recent information from the General Secretary of the Party, however, reveals that activity is on the increase, notably in Victoria and Winnipeg. In the latter city the local has commenced an economic class which is proving attractive to members and sympathisers.

It is a source of great satisfaction to us in Britain that the S.P. of C. is continuing its support to the W.S.P. of the U.S.A. by means of financial aid, and articles for the Western Socialist.

To our comrades in the Western Hemisphere we extend our fraternal greetings, knowing that they will carry on with the only task worth while—propagation of Socialist ideas.

In a later issue we hope to bring our readers news of our companion parties in Australia and New Zealand.

H. G. Holt, Overseas Secretary.

Please send your requests for a free specimen copy of the Western Socialist to Workers' Socialist Party of the U.S.A.,

                       12, Hayward Place,

                                 Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

Subscriptions, which should be sent to the above address, are as follows :—

• 18 issues (postage included)       . . . . . . 1 dollar 
• 12 issues         ditto                      . . . . . . 75 cents.  
• 4 issues         ditto                      . . . . . . 25 cents.